


a stitch in time saves some number of lives

by AlexSeanchai



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: 3 Sentence Fiction, F/M, Identity Reveal, Parents Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir and Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Podfic Welcome, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:27:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29261976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: The future looks good, but if Timetagger is going to drop late-twenties partners on both late-teens secretly-heroes, then they may as well make the future better.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 4
Kudos: 153





	a stitch in time saves some number of lives

Timetagger's vortex spits them out beside the long table at which Adrien is pushing around his plate the first meal Father has deigned in six months to join him for: a woman with an untidy black bun and dark red earrings who ( _never imply someone looks either fat or pregnant_ , Adrien remembers Maman teaching him, _unless they admit to it themselves_ ) is possibly smuggling a pumpkin under her oversized green tee, and the small child, equally dark-haired and bright-eyed, who wriggles out of the woman's arms, shrieks at their first glimpse of Father, and flees to climb trembling to Adrien's lap.

"What are you doing in my house?" Father asks, glaring icily at the woman even as Adrien tries to simultaneously embrace the child (he's seen old enough photos of his mother: that's _her_ face, almost—his own face—with different coloration) and get a good enough grip that if need be, Adrien can escape with the frightened child.

The woman looks around, familiar blue eyes lingering for a soft moment on Adrien himself before landing on Father and hardening to vivid sapphire: "Apparently I don't live here yet," she returns, circling the table to Adrien, "since my husband looks all of sixteen—" ( _ouch_ ; Adrien is seventeen plus three hundred eight days, thank you) "—so we'll be leaving; I hope your security cameras got satisfactory images of us, _sir_ ," she adds, steering Adrien and their child through the foyer and out, "and do thank Hawkmoth for the opportunity, as it's the only time you'll ever see your grandchildren."

* * *

Marinette hears the vortex snarl open and, looking down from her balcony, sees it close: a blond man who wasn't there before crouches with feral protectiveness around someone Marinette therefore can't see, the tension along the man's spine all too familiar, as is the way it eases somewhat at the sound of her gasp.

She rushes downstairs but doesn't beat them into the bakery; "—see that memetacular campaign," the grown-up, entirely unmasked Chat Noir is telling the brunette girl Manon's age (obviously his daughter, they've the same curious tilt to their chin and the same gleam of mischief in green eyes), "I know I wasn't the only Adrien in Paris deeply relieved when the last of those ads came down in 2018, which means the me who lives here is not yet either a baker or a Dupain-Cheng because he's like seventeen, so really, Emme, why _would_ it say anything but Tom and Sabine's?" Chat Noir finishes, noting and ignoring Marinette's mother's skeptical stance and grinning when he spots Marinette.

"Did you get extra handsome between my now and your now just to annoy me," Marinette wonders, snagging three croissants and the mini chocolate éclair her future daughter is staring at hopefully, "wait, sorry, impress me, or—" (because her partner with at least fifteen years' more experience is, among other precious things, a strategic resource she intends to take maximum advantage of) "—are you just that lucky?"

* * *

Ladybug—and what does she _mean_ , Adrien knows her name?—is scribbling in a mini sketchbook she had in her pants pocket, stuff she says to read "with mini-me, as soon as possible, and at least half a country away from Hawkmoth and Mayura," when they enter the park and see, at the far corner near their statue, Marinette blushing at an unfamiliar man about this Ladybug's age, who has a somewhat larger child riding on his back than Adrien himself has in his arms. Adrien is about to push Louise back at her mother so he can go rescue Marinette (she's usually too shy to rescue herself from this sort of thing, and it isn't like Adrien objects to strangers thinking he's Marinette's boyfriend) when Louise yells "Papa!" and the other child shouts "Maman!" even as the man swings them down to Marinette, and Ladybug is dropping pencil and sketchbook to have free hands when her own husband and partner catches her into a deep kiss.

Holy shit, Adrien thinks, attention riveted to the proof all his dreams will come true, and by the time it occurs to him to pick up the sketchbook, Marinette already has: "I know who Hawkmoth and Mayura are," she tells him, voice low and intense, head tilted to show him the dark red earrings she's always worn even as she examines the silver ring she has hardly ever seen him without, "and if you promise to keep your curiosity bagged until we're safely out of range," she adds, turning pink, "I promise you a proper kiss": a bargain too overwhelming for Adrien to answer except by breathing "My lady," and too sappily familiar for Louise and—did they name her Émilie?—to answer except by chorusing "Eww."


End file.
